Work Teams and the Benefits Involved
Benefits of Teamwork at Work
1. Learning: Within a strong work team, everyone can gain knowledge from each other. Everyone gives his/her opinion regarding possible training offered by the business. The ability to educate one another requires modesty, and comprehension that individuals have more power when they aide each other’s growth. Both of these are traits of a strong team (Martin, 2013).
2. Making Decisions: Also within a strong team, individuals are aware of what role they play as well as the chain of command in their business; this makes for easy decision making. Each member of the team knows who has the power to make a decision, and this individual’s choices are accepted. Each member has the chance to give his/her opinion, and the leader will consider them (Martin, 2013).
3. Clear Expectations: When each team member is aware of what is expected of them, they tend to be more efficient and feel better about their occupations. Team members tend to trust each other, depend on each other, and work independently all at the same time. When a team member does not know what is expected of them, they get frustrated and begin to feel hostile, as well as feeling that other teammates ask too much, or other people are doing too little (Martin, 2013).
4. Strong Communications: Strong teams have solid communication networks. As individuals start to work from different places, this network becomes more necessary. Strong teams are aware of how to get in touch with each other, and it is necessary to keep each other aware of what is going on at all times. Each individual knows which data is most important for each person as well as who is responsible for sharing that data (Martin, 2013).
5. Conflict Resolutions: Conflicts arise in any team, strong or not. However, strong teams will see this as a chance to grow organizationally. Teams are able to exhaust conflicts as opportunities to discuss ways to improve the business (Martin, 2013).
6. Sense of Pride: Lastly, strong teams assure that every employee feels significant and is aware of new ideas. This gives a feeling of pride to the business. Finally, this feeling of pride leads to stronger work ethics and better performances (Martin, 2013).
Problems faced When Working as a Team
1. Assignments not being completed in a timely manner.
2. Hard to get off the ground
3. Thoughts are not communicated as a team
4. Certain individuals do not do their parts
5. People trying to dominate others
6. Not focusing on the task at hand
When is it Appropriate to Use Work Teams?
When a task requires the interdependent effort of several individuals to complete, it's a team task. However, to be an effective team, the team members must be mutually accountable to each other for its accomplishment. Many so-called teams never develop into teams simply because the work, the accountability, or both, are structured as if the task were individual (Fottler, Ford, & Heaton, 2010).
What is the Individual’s Role within a Work Team and Do you feel that a work team is beneficial to the staff?
I feel that an individual’s role within a work team is to ensure that they are working together with the team, and that he/she has his/her contributions ready by the deadline. A team is nothing more than a group of individuals working together to accomplish one goal. I do feel that a work team is beneficial to the staff if all people do their individual parts. If they don’t then the team could end up failing (Fottler, Ford, & Heaton, 2010).
References
Fottler, M. D., Ford, R. C., & Heaton, C. P. (2010). Achieving Service Excellence: Stategies for Healthcare. (2nd Ed.). Health Administration Press.
Martin, M. J. (2013). Benefits of Teamwork at Work. Retrieved from eHow Money: http://www.ehow.com/list_6306636_benefits-teamwork-work.html
